Abstract:

The recently-observed increased access to digital technologies, including the Internet, has been one of the main reasons for student plagiarism during writing diploma theses. What is more, many students belittle not only the direct rewriting of text fragments, without providing their source, but uses the services of portals specializing in writing this type of papers. Therefore, in order to solve the problem, since 2019, Polish universities have been obliged to apply the Uniform Anti-plagiarism System [original name in PL: Jednolity System Antyplagiatowy]. The mandatory verification of the papers written by students, via this system, is to increase the control of the texts as well as to make the students aware of the consequences of misusing other people's words, sentences and ideas. Taking the above into account, the aim of the article is to assess the effectiveness of using the new anti-plagiarism program at universities. Implementation of this study was connected with obtaining answers to the following questions:
Q1: How is the text of a written work examined via the new anti-plagiarism system?
Q2: Which parts of written works does the system most commonly consider as plagiarism?
Q3: What are the main disadvantages of the anti-plagiarism system used to examine diploma theses?
Q4: What are the main reasons for the high anti-plagiarism indicators in the system when examining accounting and finance papers?

The analysis covered 50 anti-plagiarism reports obtained by verification of the master's and bachelor's theses on accounting and finances, which were accepted for defense in the academic year 2018/2019 (first period of the Uniform Anti-plagiarism System operation at the University of Gdansk). Attention was mainly drawn to four types of borrowings: the legislative database, the Internet, the database of institutions, and the National Repository of Written Diploma Works [original name in PL: Ogólnopolskie Repozytorium Pisemnych Prac Dyplomowych].

The research results obtained indicate that the acceptable anti-plagiarism indicators were exceeded in the system by about 60% of the papers that had been accepted by the thesis supervisors and subjected to the analysis. The exceeded standard values of the indicators mainly resulted from the fact that the students quoted literature that exists in the system database, used the legal acts and the data contained in published financial reports, which were not verified correctly by the system. In addition, it was found that the system introduced increased the responsibilities of the thesis supervisors, who decide about whether or not a given paper will be accepted for thesis defense.

The primary limitation of the study entailed the fact that the analysis only involved 50 papers, written by the students completing Accounting specialization studies at the Faculty of Management, at the University of Gdansk, during the first year of the anti-plagiarism system’s operation. In future, the analysis should include plagiarism reports from other specializations and study majors, both at the University of Gdansk and other universities in Poland.

The research conducted increases the state of knowledge on the usefulness of the anti-plagiarism system for verification of diploma theses, in terms of plagiarism. The conclusions formulated can serve as an indication for the persons evaluating student theses, for the students themselves, and for the persons designing anti-plagiarism software.

Keywords:

Plagiarism, plagiarism report, report analysis, Poland.